Everyone was to move closer to it and deliver his or her provisions. Below the table lay a piece of blue-and-red oilcloth the size of a large quilt. No one reclined on it. Margaret moved her stool to be within the gathering, and she sat, appreciating the give of the canvas seat. Saartje and Diana spread out a picnic worthy of the best safari expeditions: four kinds of sandwiches, the crusts removed; scones with butter and blackberry jam; tea for six; fresh loaves of bread such as Margaret had pulled out from her backpack to have with cheese; several bottles of wine; and a pineapple that Arthur sliced with expertise.
Margaret chose a little of everything, relishing the slices of pineapple handed to her: juicy, succulent pieces of fruit that seemed the most delicious food she’d ever eaten. The needy beast inside her tamed a bit, and she had a delicate cucumber sandwich, a cup of tea from a thermos, and a tear of bread with a slice of crumbly cheese that someone informed her was Caerphilly. Imported, it was pointed out. The Dutch and the British opened the wine almost immediately and drank from plastic cups, roughing it. When the wine was offered to Margaret, she declined on prudent grounds. She believed everything Arthur and Willem had said about alcohol and altitude. Patrick accepted a cup of wine and handed it to Margaret for a small sip, which she took. His manners and his understanding of her body—its possibilities and its limitations—were impeccable.
“I suppose the question… well, it’s always the question, isn’t it… is whether or not we ought even to try to bring the Masai into the twentieth century.”
Willem laid the quandary on the table for all of them to admire and perhaps nibble at.
“I happen to think the effort essential,” Arthur said. “They look regal, don’t they, in their robes and maridadi, but if you travel to the manyattas, as I’ve done, you’d be horrified. Clusters of flies the size of tennis balls hover over the infants’ eyes. The smoke in the huts is suffocating. Medicine is so primitive, it does more harm than good.”
Margaret wondered why Arthur had had reason to visit the manyattas. Had he been trying to sell toothpaste to the Masai?
“But they aren’t confused about who they are,” Patrick countered. “They have an ancient nomadic society that has been largely unbroken for centuries. They are serious about protecting what is theirs, but they are a contented people. They are not listless or lazy or bored. They have deep beliefs in their gods and rituals and ceremonies.”
“They have no education!” Arthur exclaimed.
“True. But they are educated within the mores of their tribe.”
“But we
live
in the twentieth century. It’s not the sixteenth century, for heaven’s sake. People need to adjust, adapt, in order to progress. Anyway, Patrick, yours is a very unlikely position coming from a physician.”
“Well, let’s take the Kikuyu,” Patrick said. “They’ve been brought into the twentieth century—kicking and screaming, some of them. They, too, before the advent of the British, had a cohesive society. Then they had their land taken from them, were dragged into slavery—”
“Not slavery,” Arthur said, having torn off a hunk of bread with his teeth. “Don’t overdramatize.”
“Servitude, then. As good as indentured, in my opinion. The men flocked to the cities to earn European wages, which, though pitifully small by our standards, represented progress to certain Kikuyu families. But those families, still on the shambas, no longer had fathers and brothers at home. Shantytowns built up in the cities, prostitution arrived, and some essential fabric that was Kikuyu life was torn.”
“The Kikuyu run the country and are bloody corrupt,” Arthur said with some vehemence.
“Are you arguing that James, for example, was better off back at the shamba, never having traveled to Nairobi at all?” Diana challenged.
Diana, by mentioning James, had
Margaret chose a little of everything, relishing the slices of pineapple handed to her: juicy, succulent pieces of fruit that seemed the most delicious food she’d ever eaten. The needy beast inside her tamed a bit, and she had a delicate cucumber sandwich, a cup of tea from a thermos, and a tear of bread with a slice of crumbly cheese that someone informed her was Caerphilly. Imported, it was pointed out. The Dutch and the British opened the wine almost immediately and drank from plastic cups, roughing it. When the wine was offered to Margaret, she declined on prudent grounds. She believed everything Arthur and Willem had said about alcohol and altitude. Patrick accepted a cup of wine and handed it to Margaret for a small sip, which she took. His manners and his understanding of her body—its possibilities and its limitations—were impeccable.
“I suppose the question… well, it’s always the question, isn’t it… is whether or not we ought even to try to bring the Masai into the twentieth century.”
Willem laid the quandary on the table for all of them to admire and perhaps nibble at.
“I happen to think the effort essential,” Arthur said. “They look regal, don’t they, in their robes and maridadi, but if you travel to the manyattas, as I’ve done, you’d be horrified. Clusters of flies the size of tennis balls hover over the infants’ eyes. The smoke in the huts is suffocating. Medicine is so primitive, it does more harm than good.”
Margaret wondered why Arthur had had reason to visit the manyattas. Had he been trying to sell toothpaste to the Masai?
“But they aren’t confused about who they are,” Patrick countered. “They have an ancient nomadic society that has been largely unbroken for centuries. They are serious about protecting what is theirs, but they are a contented people. They are not listless or lazy or bored. They have deep beliefs in their gods and rituals and ceremonies.”
“They have no education!” Arthur exclaimed.
“True. But they are educated within the mores of their tribe.”
“But we
live
in the twentieth century. It’s not the sixteenth century, for heaven’s sake. People need to adjust, adapt, in order to progress. Anyway, Patrick, yours is a very unlikely position coming from a physician.”
“Well, let’s take the Kikuyu,” Patrick said. “They’ve been brought into the twentieth century—kicking and screaming, some of them. They, too, before the advent of the British, had a cohesive society. Then they had their land taken from them, were dragged into slavery—”
“Not slavery,” Arthur said, having torn off a hunk of bread with his teeth. “Don’t overdramatize.”
“Servitude, then. As good as indentured, in my opinion. The men flocked to the cities to earn European wages, which, though pitifully small by our standards, represented progress to certain Kikuyu families. But those families, still on the shambas, no longer had fathers and brothers at home. Shantytowns built up in the cities, prostitution arrived, and some essential fabric that was Kikuyu life was torn.”
“The Kikuyu run the country and are bloody corrupt,” Arthur said with some vehemence.
“Are you arguing that James, for example, was better off back at the shamba, never having traveled to Nairobi at all?” Diana challenged.
Diana, by mentioning James, had
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